For no less than a well-executed, tight, tense 'action'/war film, which is normally the province of the big guys. Granted, most directors are male so this is kind of a biased fact. Still, Ms. Bigelow deserves the recognition not only because her picture, The Hurt Locker (recent winner of the PGA), benefited the most from her vision, but also because her work was the best of the bunch nominated, Tarantino excluded. And it gives hope for those of us who like to obsessively follow the Oscars that it would not be a completely blue race (read: Avatarized).

Kathryn Bigelow took a major step towards this year's best director Oscar when she scooped the top prize at the Directors Guild of America awards on Saturday. Bigelow became the first woman to win the DGA award in its 62-year history. No woman has ever won the Academy Award for best director. Bigelow won for The Hurt Locker, a tense, ground-level account of a US bomb disposal team on the streets of Baghdad. "We all felt a really deep responsibility to tell this story with as much honesty as possible, given the courage of the men and women in the field," Bigelow said. She took the prize ahead of fellow nominees Quentin Tarantino (Inglourious Basterds), Lee Daniels (Precious), Jason Reitman (Up in the Air) and Golden Globe winner James Cameron (Avatar). (The Guardian)